Reading between the lines of the textbook room

Most students know where the textbook room is, but don’t truly understand the work employees there put in to keep the school’s thousands of books organized.

“The belief is that the [textbook room] only needs to operate during the first and last weeks of school. This is absolutely not true,” librarian Kevin Heyman said. “All of the plays and novels students read are managed and distributed through the textbook room; every month, an average of 1,500 plays and novels are checked out and returned. That’s 3,000 books that need to be touched every month.”

Due to the sheer number of books that need to be constantly arranged and organized for the benefit of the students, the school must rely on dedicated workers to accomplish this, according to Heyman. Staff members like Nada Macesic and Gordon Blancett keep track of 34,000 books and in the first week of school alone are in charge of distributing 9,000 books at the year begins.

With the exception of the first week of school, the textbook room is usually busy around certain deadlines, such as when students change from an AP or Honors class to a regular class or decide to attend class at a community college.

Additionally, it is important to be prepared to lend books during the summer, Heyman said.

“[The workers] spend weeks before school getting everything ready,” Heyman said. “We also rely on close to 50 parent volunteers. [Still,] the work doesn’t stop there.”

The textbook room also must take care of all necessary repairs and lost books, and the staff members must barcode and track every book that goes into the school’s database of records while also ordering new textbooks.

“When new books are purchased, they have to be processed before they can be put on the shelf and distributed to students,” Heyman said.  “For example, we have replaced all of the Spanish and French textbooks, the AP Biology, Physics and US History textbooks, as well as the Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 and Trigonometry textbooks [in recent years].”

In addition, the textbook room must provide books for new classes, such as AP Government and Calculus. This is in addition to any novels or plays that English teachers have added to their curriculum, Heyman said.

“Managing the textbook room is a huge undertaking. Fortunately, we have Ms. Macesic and Mr. Blancett to make sure that the books are kept in order and distributed in a timely manner,”  Heyman said.